Peoples Bank Acquired by Greenwood Village Operation

Peoples Bank, based in Colorado Springs, is being acquired by National Bank Holdings Corporation, based in Greenwood Village. The acquisition was announced Monday. NBH will pay $143 million in cash and stocks.

The move will increase NBH’s holdings in the home markets of the Front Range and the greater Kansas City area. NBH is also acquiring Kansas-based Peoples Bank.

Peoples Bank CEO and President Brendan Zahl will remain with NBH and manage the Colorado Springs location.

Peoples Bank, with assets totaling $376.2 million in six offices, is one of the largest in Colorado Springs.

“We are very pleased to be joining NBH, said Peoples Chairman and CEO Wint Winter Jr. in a joint press release. “Our family has built Peoples over the past five decades with a focus on caring for our customers, employees and the communities we serve. We found those same values at NBH and are proud to partner with the NBH family.”

The required approval of Peoples shareholders has been obtained and the transaction has unanimously approved by the board of directors of both companies. It remains subject to normal regulatory approval, but the deal is expected to close in the final quarter of this year.

“The transaction with Peoples bolsters our presence in our home markets of the Colorado Front Range and the greater Kansas City region,” said NBH CEO Tim Laney. “More specifically, the acquisition provides a strong market position in the attractive Colorado Springs and [Kansas City suburb] Overland Park markets and expands our franchise into northern New Mexico. In addition, we believe Peoples brings us one of the strongest retail mortgage banking platforms based within a community bank. We expect this transaction will be strongly accretive and will accelerate NBH’s trajectory toward our financial targets.”

According to the press release, the transaction adds approximately $865 million of assets, $483 million of loans held for investment and $719 million of deposits, as well as a complementary franchise-centric retail mortgage business, which originates over $1 billion of mortgage loans per year.

“We believe that our companies are stronger together and that we share a common vision for delivering great returns by building quality relationships with our clients,” Laney said. “This merger will combine the best of both of our organizations and we look forward to welcoming Peoples’ terrific team of bankers to our company.”